Mothers of the Future!

".. She asked me with coquetry and allure: Is not my face beautiful? I said yes.. And my figure — does it not resemble the iris and rival the daisies? I said yes! Then she said to me, vain as a peacock: Do I not deserve a love poem from you?!..."

.. Gently, you giddy lily
from the gardens of my country —
enough of coyness and allure!
What have you to do with the shallow, frozen glance?
Have we not had enough of chewing over deceiving appearances
and trailing after the mirage..?!
.. The rose, my lily,
is not beautiful and enchanting
by grace of its colored petals..
but by its perfume, spreading its fragrance
through the length and breadth of the heavens?!
And life is not taken by the measure of appearances and colorings,
but by what it holds of giving and active sacrifice
in the being of the nation and society.
And the sun would not be beautiful in itself
did it not spread warmth and vitality through souls
and stir them to ripening and creation!
.. And spring, my lily, would not have
that captivating beauty
if its wealth were shapes and colorings
without the essence of spring and its meaning,
without the inspirations that pierce
to the core of all living things!!
.. For many a wild rose, lovely in form,
dies without giving life
any fragrance to sustain its being and its immortality —
dies.. like the death-rattle of a sick man...
.. We wish, my lily,
that our young women
were sisters of the lilies of the field in innocence and purity,
and elder-blossom and jasmine

in giving out the scent of vigor
and planting heady fragrances
in our worn-out hearts!!..
... We wish our young women
to pour forth, like the wheat-ears of the plains,
the elixir of life and the source of existence,
that after long wandering they may become for us
bounty, and spreading shade
beneath whose branches we take shelter
whenever the breath of the noonday heat scorches us!!
.. And that after long deprivation they may become for us
a forest of palms, and swelling vineyards;
we wet our lips, sip by sip, with the wine of their creation,
and chew the clusters of dates, berry by berry,
to quench with them our spiritual hunger..
that hunger which robbed us of the beauty of feeling,
so that we shut ourselves away for a distant age,
seeing in the young woman nothing but matter..
and forgot her fertile soul!!
.. We want our young women
to carry upon their shoulders
the hopes of the nation and the aims of the future;
we want them soothers of our wounds,
understanding the places of weakness in our souls,
embodying the values of truth, goodness, and beauty!
.. We want them torches of light and knowledge
lighting the face of life before our caravans..
We want them mothers for the future;
we want them as heroism itself would want them —
a flood of sacrifice that does not run dry,
a living force that does not die!!